Author: alison@tinyblueorange.com

I took 100 steps again this morning.  The rain has finally subsided (it’s been raining since Wednesday) but its still way colder than it should be for an October day in VA.   I am sure I was a sight to behold outside in my hooded sweatshirt (with hood on my head), fleece PJ pants, and gray wool shoes. Hopefully everyone was snuggled inside on their Sunday morning instead of looking out their window at the crazy neighbor snapping photos.

My steps this morning did not take my anywhere spectacular. I walked east down the sidewalk on the street where The Calmer and I reside and step 100 stopped me in the middle of a neighbor’s driveway.  I took a 360 degree spin to take in my surroundings.  I didn’t really find too many options. cars in the driveway? ick. the sidewalk? blech. the sky? gross on this gray day.

Then I found it.

I only stayed out long enough to snap 1 picture

The irony of finding flowers in a yard when it was 43 degrees outside was amusing to me!

I am enjoying the vintage like cross-processing on this photo. I wouldn’t say I have developed a photography “style” yet per se but I do tend to enjoy the vintage look on a lot of my still subjects.  What do you think of this “look”?

Anyone else out there take 100 steps yet? I want to see what you come up with. Leave links to all your 100 steps photos in the comments here.

I’m waiting…(taps foot)

Today is Best Shot Monday (BSM) everyone. The idea behind best shot Monday is simple. Take pictures and post the best one. This week’s theme is all about dreams. I have many. They change from day to day.

Right now?

Take pictures. Lots.

Share.

Learn.

Grow.

I dream of growing a photography business.

Success!

But, I do still have quite a bit to learn. Especially capturing photos of people. Their emotions. Their feelings. So practice began today. And I had the perfect subject available. My Calmer. This was the first time I have subjected him to my lens for professional purposes. I am sure it won’t be the last. Here are his feelings on the whole ordeal.

He’s a happy camper right?!

He wasn’t like this the entire time.  Our entire shoot only lasted about 10 minutes. The location? Our own backyard. Sunset. My goal? Practice portraiture. His goal? Get this over as quick as possible! (just kidding).

One of the reasons I love this man so much is that he is such a good sport. He supports me. My dreams. My goals. My ambitions. I have a chronic problem in all aspects of my life of wanting to do it ALL. Biting off more than I can chew. Overextending myself. When I start to do to much, take on more than I can handle he talks me down.  Makes me take a mental break. Guides me. Calms me. I think he knows my limits better than I do sometimes.

When I picked up a camera 8 months ago and started a 365 project he was my #1 cheerleader. He helped me plan my shot of the day. Made sure I wasn’t forgetting to take a picture. He encouraged me to share. To improve. I stopped my 365 in June, but now with my new found passion, inspiration and drive to build this blog and *hopefully* this business from the ground up he is still my #1 fan. He doesn’t think I am biting off more than I can chew and right now neither do I. I have a lot to learn and a long way to go but as long as I have his support I will get there.  He is keeping me sane, keeping me grounded, helping my dream come true.

That is why I love this man, My Calmer.

Have I mentioned before that I’m impulsive? Like super impulsive.

I found my next lens while surfing Shutter Sisters this week. And I just couldn’t wait to purchase it.

So I didn’t.

Welcome Lensbaby!

And, welcome to fall in Virginia!

Ok ok, I know the above photo is a little wild. It’s a little too wild for my tastes. But I had fun shooting it. So it’s here.

Let me tell you a little about how this shot came to be.

Rewind to lunch on Monday. A co-worker turns to me and says “you’re really into photography right? I have an AMAZING tree in my neighborhood you have to go take a picture of!”

I am immediately intrigued.

The co-worker verbally gives me rudimentary directions.

She assures me I will totally KNOW this tree when I see it, not to worry.

I make a plan.

Next day I go!

I’m not going to lie I felt like some sort of undercover special agent driving to a strangers house to take pictures (pictures of a tree!). As I was driving I started questioning myself.

Should I do this? This is silly! This tree can’t really be THAT amazing, can it? It’s just a tree. And do people really go to take photos of it? The homeowner is going to think I am CRAZY. They are going to call the cops and I’m going to be kicked off the premises!

I did not turn around.

And as I arrived on the street where said tree was supposedly living I started doubting that it even was that spectacular. All the other trees on this road looked terribly ordinary. Your normal greenish yellowy brown trees of fall.

Then I saw it.

There was no mistaking it. THIS was the tree!

An explosion of orange fall beauty!

I parked across the road and took  shots from my rolled down car window. I longed to get out and get close to the vibrant yellow and orange leaves but even I was not that brave. Surely the cops would come after me then! So I remained content trying to capture the perfect shots from the comfort of my parked car. One of my favorite captures highlights the contrast of the orange leaves against the blue early evening sky.

I only stayed about 15 minutes. Snapping. adjusting settings. Snapping. adjusting settings. Snapping. changing lens. Snapping. adjusting settings. You get the idea.

Then a car pulled up. And it turned directly into the tree home’s driveway!

Shooting session over.

As I drove away I was happy.  I left filled with excitement over my new lens, overcoming a fear of shooting the unknown,  and the beauty of the fall season.

No stories today.  Juat a post and run.  I am in the midst of editing pictures from my first mother/son photo shoot that took place today (stay tuned for the results…) .  However, I had some play time last night with one of my favorite cats and the lensbaby, so I had to share.

Meet Vincent

He’s one of our two fur babies. Vincent loves back and chin scratches, chasing his own tail, and meowing like a girl. For a cat he’s pretty laid back. We’ve had him for 2 years. He came to us from a local cat rescue when he was a year old.  He’s a very photogenic cat and he’s one of my favorite subjects. Love him!

Today I am celebrating.

Why you ask?

I successfully completed my first family photo session today from start to finish.  Planning, shooting, editing, and now posting.

And I must gloat, I am quite proud of the results!

It was an uphill battle reaching this prideful place though. Yesterday morning I woke up excited with the anticipation of putting my skills to the test. I packed my bag methodically, making sure to include all my lenses, making sure I had a fresh memory card, and a charged battery.

I was headed out that later that evening to take pictures of two very special people in my life. Lexi has been one of my closest friends since the seventh grade and she was looking for some fall pictures of her and her son Alexander. Together we carefully researched and picked the perfect location. We decided on a local tot lot with the potential for fun and fresh colors.

I had all my ducks in a row.

I was ready.

But about 5 minutes into our session I quickly realized the art involved with photographing an independent almost 4 year old is one I may not have been ready for!

I began snapping away and as I looked at the pictures I had captured my thoughts ran a mile a minute. Images were overexposed. They had motion blur. I wasn’t metering correctly.  The colors weren’t quite right and lens wasn’t right either but there was no time to change it. If I changed a lens I might miss a moment that could be captured!  I arrived with ideas for poses. But Alexander had different ideas. He thought was much more fun to play in the sand with sticks, run around in circles, throw leaves, and look for “alligators” in the creek than take pictures with his mom! So I rolled with it. That’s my style. Go with the flow. Capture the moments as they happen. And as I rolled along I did end up liking quite a few of the pictures.

Below are a few of my favorites from the day.  Lexi and Alexander were great sports and we had a lot of fun running around in one of the last and fleeting warm fall days.  I sure learned a lot, I hope I did my friends proud, and I hope they like their photos from our evening together as much as I do!  To see more fun from our outing together click here. Enjoy!

Breaking News – I started a 100 Steps group on Flickr. Go join. Now!

For those of you following along with my 100 steps posts you may remember that I am using the same anchor point each week, my doorstep. Is that crazy? Probably. Will I run out of places to go? Most Likely. Is starting at your doorstep a rule of the game? Definitely not! I just like the challenge and using the same anchor point for comparison each week. You can play along in any way you like.

This week I took a different approach to my 100 steps. I stayed indoors!

And here is where I ended up:

Welcome to my cozy, warm, currently cluttered living room desk nook.

See the Polaroid camera hanging out on the bottom right? I really need to get out again with her this week and experiment. I am longing for some new film images to hang on the fridge.

I hope lots of you will play along with 100 steps this week. I was so excited to see some of you post your images last week and I hope to get even more of you involved this week! Go out (or stay in!). Take 100 steps. Stop. Shoot. Post here. Join the Flickr group. Share.

I can’t wait to see where you end up.

The answer to the question “What’s cookin'” 9 times out of 10 in our house is nothing. Cooking isn’t really my style. I much more enjoy choosing the lazy convenient route of a local restaurant where someone will do the work in the kitchen for me. It’s not that I can’t cook, I just hate the amount of shopping, dishes, and leftovers that are involved when there are only 2 of us in the house.

If anyone wants to come over for dinner I will gladly cook for any/all of you! I love finding and making new recipes but only when there are more then 2 people to share the final product with. And I am pretty darn good at cooking. Just don’t ask me to bake. That’s a whole other story entirely!

But I digress….

Unfortunately the theme for this week’s Best Shot Monday is “What’s Cookin'” and since there was absolutely no cooking or domestic activities going on here tonight I had to take a different interpretation on the theme besides the obvious. This evening in my house what I have cooking is a relaxing night on the couch with my favorite Calmer and 2 furbabies.

Last week I had the pleasure of introducing you to my beautiful boy Vincent through the eyes of my Lensbaby. This week, meet Ebony, through my amazing 35mm/1.8 portrait lens. She’s a pro at cooking up a relaxing evening with the rest of us.

The buzz around Shutter Sisters this week has been all about positive self talk. Feeling alive. Feeling empowered. I am trying. I really am.

But sometimes pain and the hurting  just feel right.  So if you don’t mind I am going to mourn for a bit today.

This week I miss her. A lot.

Have you ever gotten that raw mind numbing feeling? Where you’re just going through the motions but not really all quite there. Where every little negative comment or statement seems to set you off into an angry tirade or a bawling mess?  Where your rational mind is thrown out the window?

That’s me this week.

Longing for her. Wishing for the pain to end. Waiting.

Maybe its the weather. It’s been rainy. And gray. The seasons are changing. You can feel it. You can smell it. You can see it.

I feel a lot like the trees this week.

Stripped.

Delicate.

Raw.

Hopefully the sun comes out soon so I can be lifted out of this funk. It’s been an exhausting week.

Thank to those of you who expressed your support as I muddled through a rough week. I am feeling much better for those of you keeping track. And really, who can be sad on Halloween? It’s such a fun holiday!

I am currently having a love affair with textured photos.  At first the idea of texturing a photo seemed so complicated. A long process. One not to mess with. But then I discovered  Ishtexture on flickr.  And suddenly I wanted to know how to add texture!  If you have a basic knowledge of Photoshop it really isn’t too hard. I even have a link to a little tutorial to get you started if you want a new obsession like me!

I love ishkamina’s textures because she has many fun ones to play with.

Ones that sparkle.

And shine.

They are sure to brighten anyone’s day!

So here’s a little sparkle and shine on this Halloween.

I hope yours is as bright and hopeful as mine!

Happy November! Can you believe it?

I surely cannot.

In my world, November = the official start of the holiday season. It’s time for the mad dash to Christmas. The weather is getting colder. Parties to attend. Decorations to hang.

And gifts to buy.

I don’t know about you but I’m always struggling meticulous with gift giving. I want to find the perfect present for everyone. And I always wait until the last minute. ALWAYS.

Sooooo, in order to hopefully make your holidays (and mine!) a little less stressful I am going to be offering weekly gift giving suggestions. All reasonably priced and with a photography twist of course!

Today I am going to introduce you to a really cool website called memolio.

I stumbled upon this gem of a website a few weeks ago. Based in the Netherlands they have adopted a new way of photo sharing.  A memolio contains 24 business card sized images printed on durable plastic and bound together into a cute little book. Each memolio costs about  $23 (US currency).

I decided to put memolio to the test and printed 2 books.

My favorite color images

My favorite black and white images

My first concern with the site was that these babies were being printed and shipped form the Netherlands. No worries though. They came within a week of my order! I was very impressed with the level of customer service and the quick turnaround time.

My second concern was with the image quality.  Unfortunately, the printing really is not professional grade. There was some color bleeding. Not a huge distraction though.

I give the memolio high marks for it’s compact size.  They’d make amazing brag books for weddings, children, vacations, events. The possibilities are endless.

So go check out memolio now and get creating!  I’d love to see what you come up with so stop back by here and share if you decide to try it out.